Orange-lemon graft

Citrus spp.

Rutaceae

The graft is a hybrid, a combination of two species to generate a new one. The introduction of new species and varieties, the search for new technologies, optimizing results, is linked to agriculture since its inception and the classic works of Natural History. Treaties such as Pliny the Old include numerous examples of such processes, that for its easy control, often took place in gardens and not on crops away from dwellings.
In Seville, a city where there were plenty of citrus from the Andalusi period, a doctor from the mid-sixteenth century, Nicolas Monardes, ventured the possible origin of this type of fruit species in his Treatise on Citrus. About graft, Monardes repeatedly emphasizes his belief that the different citrus grown were created using this technique.
Nicolas Monardes (1508-1577) is attributed the incorporation to the European Pharmacopoeia of numerous American medicinal plants. This Sevillian doctor had an orchard in which he planted and cultivated plants, many of American origin, such as tobacco, which was used for its analgesic properties, peppers, sunflower or common soapwort. It was a garden of acclimatization and experimentation, maintained by Monardes to easily dispose of medicinal plants that could be used in medical treatments. The urban gardens of some scholars like Monardes made Europe begin to learn about new species came from America through Sevilla.